


Old In My Shoes

by leobrat



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-16 19:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leobrat/pseuds/leobrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd never, ever seen anything like that, and the fact that it was her...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old In My Shoes

The difference a couple of hours made.

An couple of hours ago, Mark was stitching up a laceration in the pit, keeping one eye on his work, and the other eye on Karev. He hated having him on his service. But they were still short-staffed, so many people couldn’t come into work, so many people were still too _afraid_ to come back to work, so he was stuck with the Bullet Hoarder.

One minute he was suturing, glaring at Karev, and the next he was prying Lexie off the floor while she was trying to claw his face off. She flailed and screamed herself raw all through the hallway, and he couldn’t take her through the entire hospital like that so he carried her up four flights of stairs. She was so light...he thought she must have lost ten, fifteen pounds.

She’d calmed down some by the time he got her upstairs, but started whimpering and crying again when she saw where they were headed. “ _Mark, Mark..._ ” she was saying other things too, things that might have been _please_ and _no_ and _help_ but all he could make out clearly was the sound of his own name.

“I’m sorry, Lex, so sorry,” he whispered back, though he didn’t know what he was apologizing for.

“A psychotic break?” Mark repeated back to the attending psychiatrist, after she’d doped up Lexie with enough drugs to keep a horse still, and she was finally quiet.

“It’s not as extreme as it might sound, Dr. Sloan,” He replied, in that irritatingly soothing voice that he was sure was a third-level requirement for psych professionals. “Considering what she’s been through, this isn’t surprising at all. I think all she needs is some rest.”

 _What she’s been through._

And he sat by her bedside, holding her hand, and watching her eyelids flutter, sometimes her forehead would crease and whatever she was dreaming about, it wasn’t sunshine and kittens. After a time, Meredith was in the room with him. “Why don’t you go on, Mark?” she whispered, even though Lexie was out, and would be out for some time. “I’ll stay with her. I need a little break.” A little break from her gunshot-wounded husband, to sit with her psychotic-break sister. Whatever worked for Meredith Grey.

He’d spent a very little amount of time at home in the past month. Richard was more than happy to overschedule him as Mark was one of the few people still willing and able to work, and he spent a fair amount of time with Derek. His apartment was far too quiet, too still…too empty. He’d embarrassed himself one night, late at the end of a shift by asking and then begging Lexie to come home with him, and that wouldn’t happen again. He would only go home when he knew he was too tired to do anything but drop asleep, and only then when he knew he’d be too tired to dream.

Dreams weren’t a friendly place to be, these days.

Joe’s was mostly cleared out- everything surrounding the hospital was a ghost town, it was like no one wanted to touch it with a mile-long stick.

“Hey, Mark,” Joe wiped up a spot at the bar as Mark peeled off his jacket. “Stella?” His usual. But not tonight.

“I’ll take a Johnnie Walker. Make it a double.” Joe nodded. He’d seen it all in the past couple of weeks.

The first shot went down like lighter fluid, it always did, but the second went down easier, and the third was velvet. Mark rolled the glass in his fingers and sighed deeply, letting out the shaky breath he’d been holding all day. _Sorry, Lex, so sorry._ He’d never, ever seen her like that. He’d never, ever seen _anything_ like that, and the fact that it was _her_ …The fact that there was nothing he could do about it…

“Commit her?” Mark raised his head-a lot heavier than it should have been- and looked over to the right corner of the bar.

Karev had been there a while, long enough that Joe apparently had just given him the bottle of tequila, rather than pouring him shots. The cheap shit, too. He was hammered, all right. Mix that with his painkillers and Mark was actually pretty impressed that he was still sitting upright, rather than passed out in the alley.

“Do you care or just curious?” He answered, motioning to Joe for another shot. Joe hesitated for just a moment before pouring it. Karev didn’t answer.

Mark pushed himself back from his seat and threw down a bill on the bar. Steadying himself, he walked over to Karev, who didn’t move at all. “Karev…I’m talking to you.”

Karev blinked but still didn’t even turn his head and somehow, Mark’s blood started to boil. “Just turn away, just ignore it.” Mark hadn’t started a fight since the seventh grade, but he reached out and shoved Karev, hard enough to stumble off his barstool. It was a pussy move, but he could see a flare of light and life in his eyes, and that made him feel victorious.

“Hey, hey!” Joe was around the bar, already standing between them. “Not in here. Never thought I’d have to tell you that, Mark.”

“Sorry Joe,” Mark said immediately. Joe was right- he didn’t deserve to pick up after a school boy fight. He left before he could look at Karev and lose it again.

Outside, the early fall air was cool, almost unseasonably cool, and Mark sucked in huge, deep breaths of it. He could almost drink the air this close to the harbor.

A moment later, he heard heavy footsteps behind him. Mark turned around.

Karev was steady on his feet, even if his eyes were bleary and shadowed. “Thanks for waiting,” he said. And then, with no other warning, cracked him across the jaw so hard he staggered back a good four feet.

And it was _on_.

Trading messy punches, his back slamming against brick walls, grunting and punching like a fourth-rate Rocky Balboa, Mark had to say…he felt better than he had all summer. Or he would have said if he didn’t catch an elbow to his windpipe. Karev stood over him, holding him by the jacket collar, a bloody fist raised and tense…and then he just dropped him.

Mark pushed himself up against the wall, breathing hard. Karev was backing away, letting it go, and a small part of him was relieved. Karev was a better fighter, scrappier, and eventually he would have kicked the crap out of him. And another part of him was feeling his age, and bitching and moaning that he wanted to kill him…if he could only move.

“So you committed her?” Karev was breathing hard, and Mark just nodded. He couldn’t even work up the breath to answer. Karev slumped down on the opposite wall. “Yeah. Of course. Yeah.”

Mark got control of his breathing and dragged his sleeve over his forehead. He was way too old for this. “What the hell are you talking about, Karev?”

Karev laughed, low and bitter. “Crazies…they just find me. I could be in a crowd of a thousand, and the crazy one will find me.”

“Maybe they’re just fine, maybe it’s you,” Mark shot out, and he could tell from the look in Karev’s eye that it wasn’t the first time he thought of it. “Sorry. That was shitty.”

Karev shrugged. He’d heard worse. He’d said worse. “Look, we have to square something me and you.” Mark waited. “You…you saved my life. You could have taken her and gotten the hell out, you could have left me, nobody would have blamed you. But you kept me from bleeding out, you saved my life.” It cost him a lot to express gratitude, Mark knew that. And he appreciated it.

“You should thank her,” that couldn’t escape him. “She was the one who went to the blood bank, she walked out with a madman on the loose. You should thank her.”

“I know,” Karev was looking down, almost as if he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “I know.” He looked back up. “I can’t talk to her right now, I _know,_ I know what she did for me, but I just can’t…” There were no words. There was nothing he could do.

They both eventually picked themselves up and headed off in their separate directions. Mark went home, even dreading the silence and the emptiness. He showered and changed his clothes and went right back to the hospital.

Meredith was still sitting with Lexie. “What happened to you?” she asked, eyebrows raised, and he just waved his hand.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” He looked down at Lexie. She was peaceful. He smoothed back the wispy-fine hair from her forehead. “Why don’t you go back to Derek, Meredith?” She opened her mouth as if to protest, but got up and left with a quiet _thanks_.

When the door clicked shut behind her, Mark sat back down in the chair next to the bed, holding one of Lexie’s hands between both of his own. With no one else there, he pressed his mouth to her palm.

There was nothing else he could do.


End file.
